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Extra Large Marge posted:I read a lot of Gary Paulsen books, mostly having to do with survival in the woods (The Hatchet, The River, Brian's Winter) or at sea (Voyage of the Frog). redshirt posted:lol this thread had me thinking of old Johnny Tremaine. I gave a lot of shits about poor Johnny, with his injury and stuck working at a hot, dangerous forge all day. I remember thinking, well, school's not so bad compared to that.... What *did* click with me, unfortunately, were the Little House books. They aged poorly for reasons that are incredibly obvious but that’s ok. I can enjoy the childhood memories of them, and still never once recommend them to kids nowadays, ever. I’m thinking the American Girl series aged possibly better? I did love that they had historical tidbits, shame that the dolls were next level expensive but the books themselves were really fun.
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Feb 25, 2024 21:08
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teen witch posted:What *did* click with me, unfortunately, were the Little House books. They aged poorly for reasons that are incredibly obvious but that’s ok. I can enjoy the childhood memories of them, and still never once recommend them to kids nowadays, ever. Aside from calling native people Indians, what didn't age well about them? I've read one of them (but admittedly it was a few decades ago) and I'm down as gently caress with the tv show.
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Feb 25, 2024 21:27
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Now y'all have me thinking about all the similar hosed up childhood books I read and loved. Johnny Tremaine did click with me. Other memorable books - Incident at Hawk's Hill about a mute/nearly mute toddler lost in the wilderness and taken in by a badger. - When the Legends Die orphaned Native American boy forced into white schools and customs who becomes an anti-social bull rider. He gets injured a lot, eventually retires and regains his native background. -The Outsiders, of course. -Hatchet was great. Didn't like The River as much. Didn't know until much later of the other books and never read them. -The Face on the Milk Carton. Read one of the sequels as an adult and thought it was trash. I identified with Skinnybones, and having no athletic talent at all.
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Feb 25, 2024 21:27
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Hey, since this is the defacto kids/young teens book thread, and survival books are being discussed in the last half page or so, it reminded me of something. If you're from Canada, you probably read Lost In The Barrens (sometimes known as Two Against The North) and The Curse of The Viking's Grave by Farley Mowat about the exploits of Jamie MacNair (white kid) and Awasin Meewasin (Cree native kid). I reread both of those a year or two ago after coming across the transcripts online and noticed something interesting. It mentioned that Awasin, and his sister, and the various kids in their village went to "The Mission School" in (some remote place in BFE northern Canada). That probably would have been a residential school. The types of school endorsed/funded by the government and run by various branches of christianity that practiced cultural genocide on the native peoples of Canada, amongst other awful poo poo that those kids were also subjected too. When I read the books in grade 8 circa 1992-93 or so, I'd never heard of those schools so had no idea. But rereading them recently, especially in the wake of all kinds of unmarked graves having recently being found at old residential schools just kinda made me think "fuuuuuccckkk". I wonder if the aurthor would have mentioned that in the books if such knowledge was widely known back then. Maybe it was and people just didn't give a gently caress. So uhhhhh, yeah.
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Feb 25, 2024 22:10
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wesleywillis posted:Aside from calling native people Indians, what didn't age well about them? I've read one of them (but admittedly it was a few decades ago) and I'm down as gently caress with the tv show. There were quite a few bits I remember that stuck out, this article is a decent overview of some (and wow I remember the dark eyes comment! not the minstrel show however) Also holy poo poo I did *not* know anything about the libertarian poo poo: wikipedia posted:Connections with politics
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Feb 25, 2024 22:14
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Extra Large Marge posted:I read a lot of Gary Paulsen books, mostly having to do with survival in the woods (The Hatchet, The River, Brian's Winter) or at sea (Voyage of the Frog). Did you ever read Brian's Return? It begins with him almost beating another student to death because of his PTSD. Some kid bullies him, and he can't distinguish between a normal schoolboy threat and a life-and-death situation.
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Feb 25, 2024 22:52
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RC and Moon Pie posted:-The Face on the Milk Carton. Read one of the sequels as an adult and thought it was trash. Every so often I think about how the main character wanted to change her boring name Jane Johnson to the incredible name Jayyne Jonstone.
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Feb 25, 2024 23:15
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teen witch posted:There were quite a few bits I remember that stuck out, this article is a decent overview of some (and wow I remember the dark eyes comment! not the minstrel show however) Read the link you posted. Got ya. Yeah, it was a product of its time and those sorts of things mentioned aren't particularly acceptable these days.
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Feb 25, 2024 23:31
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I got the boxed set of Wayside School books and wanted to read them with my son before bedtime. He wasn't super into it and agreed to one chapter, but we ended up reading half the book, ending for the night at "Sammy", which blew his tiny mind. I've always been very close to him, but anything that helps maintain that closeness is such a wonderful thing.
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Feb 26, 2024 00:36
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wesleywillis posted:Anyone ever read the book "call it courage" it was about this son or grandson of the chief of some south pacific islanders who is a sissy boy because he saw his mom get killed at sea when he was a kid. All the other native kids make fun of him. At some point he somehow gets stranded on an island with his dog and has to live on his own. He fights the "feke' monster ( an octopus that I called the feeky monster when talking about it with friends) eventually builds a boat and gets chased off the island by cannibals and makes it back to his island where he finally has courage and everyone thinks he's dope and a real man Doesn't he cut his foot on coral and then sterilize it with a lime or something? I haven't thought about that book in 25 years
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Feb 26, 2024 00:55
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What was the book about the lost kid who lived in a tree and ate acorn soup?
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Feb 26, 2024 00:57
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credburn posted:I used to read an Encyclopedia Brown knockoff that had this weird conceit that, this kid was like a reporter or something, but his boss "liked puzzles," and so the kid would create jigsaw puzzles out of pictures he drew/took. And it was the reader's job, to, I GUESS cut out the jigsaw shapes from the pages of the book and then put them together?? I can't remember what these books were called but I enjoyed them (I never once cut out the jigsaw shapes gently caress that) I read that series. It was a detective who liked to draw the solution and cut it up as a puzzle for his boss. I also never cut the pages out, especially since the solution was on another page, backwards instead of upside down.
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Feb 26, 2024 01:33
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Another pivotal part of my childhood was tracking down and reading as many "Choose Your Own Adventure" books that I could get my hands on. The Goosebumps ones were probably my favorite. Nothing R.L. Stine loved more than burning children alive with volcanoes and evil curses.
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Feb 26, 2024 02:02
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vegetables posted:At least in 90s Britain there was also an ecosystem of harrowing children’s books which teach you the world is cruel and free of justice, which were the ones my parents would buy me. I remember a lot of books like that. It's like they wanted you to learn as soon as possible that the world is horrible. Anyone else read The Pinballs by Betsy Byars? It's about three kids who are in foster care for various depressing reasons, like one who's in a wheelchair because his drunk-driving father ran over his legs. Byars must've resolved every situation in the book by thinking of what would be the most depressing outcome, like the wheelchair kid really likes KFC and at one point the other characters go out and he hopes they bring some back, but they forget and he's sad. Then another time they do remember to bring some back, but in the meantime something else depressing has happened to him so he's too sad to enjoy it. redshirt posted:What was the book about the lost kid who lived in a tree and ate acorn soup? My Side of the Mountain. ChickenHeart posted:Another pivotal part of my childhood was tracking down and reading as many "Choose Your Own Adventure" books that I could get my hands on. The Goosebumps ones were probably my favorite. Those sorts of books were always disturbing because all the bad things were happening to 'you' instead of some character. One that sticks in my mind had a bad ending that went "The last thing you ever see is a shotgun butt rushing toward your face."
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Feb 26, 2024 02:09
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The Bible posted:I got the boxed set of Wayside School books and wanted to read them with my son before bedtime. He wasn't super into it and agreed to one chapter, but we ended up reading half the book, ending for the night at "Sammy", which blew his tiny mind. Yes! My daughter loved them too! Anyone remember the Indian in the Cupboard? It was a series of 4 books I think about this cupboard that transports people from the past into the present via toy models. IIRC it was set in Britain?
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Feb 26, 2024 02:11
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vegetables posted:At least in 90s Britain there was also an ecosystem of harrowing children’s books which teach you the world is cruel and free of justice, which were the ones my parents would buy me. I had an opposite experience where a steady diet of naive well intentioned media taught me that the secret to success is doing the right thing and being a good person which will lead to positive results thanks to the power of friendship, followed by shipping me off to basic training now I post here too™️©️
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Feb 26, 2024 02:15
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A Strange Aeon posted:Yes! My daughter loved them too! My brother, who never read a drat thing, devoured those books as well as Goosebumps - which is weird because he hates horror! I only ever saw the movie adaptation of the first book and mostly was just interested in the magic cupboard because I wanted my toys to come to life, too.
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Feb 26, 2024 02:18
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A Strange Aeon posted:Yes! My daughter loved them too! I remember reading that...iirc there was a scene where the Iroquois protagonist takes a machine gun from a toy soldier and goes back to murder a bunch of Algonquians or something. There was a similar book, not sure if it was the same author, called the Castle in the Attic that had a medieval theme
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Feb 26, 2024 02:20
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I think the secret to Goosebumps's success and staying power was like 90% cover art/design. If you're a 7 year old in the mid 90s that poo poo is basically irresistible. The books weren't bad but they weren't especially amazing either.
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Feb 26, 2024 02:21
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credburn posted:I used to read an Encyclopedia Brown knockoff that had this weird conceit that, this kid was like a reporter or something, but his boss "liked puzzles," and so the kid would create jigsaw puzzles out of pictures he drew/took. And it was the reader's job, to, I GUESS cut out the jigsaw shapes from the pages of the book and then put them together?? I can't remember what these books were called but I enjoyed them (I never once cut out the jigsaw shapes gently caress that) The Encyclopedia Brown series had an actual puzzle book where you were supposed to cut the solution puzzle out of the book and assemble the solution. I think they were approximately 9 tiles total that would be assembled to reveal the answers. I could never bring myself to cut up a perfectly good book.
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Feb 26, 2024 02:22
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Action Jacktion posted:I remember a lot of books like that. It's like they wanted you to learn as soon as possible that the world is horrible. Anyone else read The Pinballs by Betsy Byars? It's about three kids who are in foster care for various depressing reasons, like one who's in a wheelchair because his drunk-driving father ran over his legs. Byars must've resolved every situation in the book by thinking of what would be the most depressing outcome, like the wheelchair kid really likes KFC and at one point the other characters go out and he hopes they bring some back, but they forget and he's sad. Then another time they do remember to bring some back, but in the meantime something else depressing has happened to him so he's too sad to enjoy it. My younger sister was obsessed with whatever this genre is. Chief among them was some book named "A Child Called It", which I didn't read, but had vividly described to me many times, which dissuaded me from reading it. She also chain-watched Grave of the Fireflies. She wasn't into anime at all, just that one. It's incredibly depressing.
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Feb 26, 2024 02:24
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My third or fourth grade class read Stone Fox and Where the Red Fern Grows in quick succession and it was a one-two punch of The Beloved Dog Dies at the End. I think the teacher was trying to teach some lessons on how life is tough and everything sucks.
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Feb 26, 2024 02:29
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Donald Sobol would later publish a huge collection of "Two Minute Mysteries", which were basically Encyclopedia Brown stories but with actual murders and ostensibly intended for adults. It always tickled me when I recognized one of the solutions to the mysteries from the days I spent binge-reading Encyclopedia Brown.
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Feb 26, 2024 02:30
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The one lesson I remember from Encyclopedia Brown is that if someone claims to have a one-touch knockout, check if his opponent falls backward or forward. If he falls backwards, kick his rear end.
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Feb 26, 2024 02:32
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One of the big children's authors here when I was growing up (maybe still is) was Paul Jennings. He writes a lot of "weird" stories but one of the things I noticed even as a kid that made me uncomfortable was how almost *every loving thing he wrote* involved a kid (usually a young teen) being naked and embarrassed in front of at least one other person. I was given the Wicked series and it was... Alright? Weird, but not in like a "woah crazy" way but more I just got the vibe that some of the things that happen probably... Shouldn't have made it through editing? Like the second protagonist's mother becoming young temporarily and then making out with the protagonist. That was weird and uncomfortable to read. Anyway, a lot of his stories got made into episodes of Round the Twist, which I remember being alright but super hit and miss, and having some uncomfortable episodes. So there's that.
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Feb 26, 2024 02:53
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Saturday, the 12th of October. That one sticks with me. Isekai’d into caveman times. Finger amputating with pocket knives. Also I have it on good authority that Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack.
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Feb 26, 2024 03:03
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J.T. is probably the book I remember the most fondly of all the stuff I had to read as a kid. Homer Price was great too!
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Feb 26, 2024 03:12
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I might have missed any references to "The Three Investigators". An "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" series of mystery books. A little more "gritty" than the Hardy Boys, but same idea. These three fellows had the coolest HQ in a junkyard with tunnels and secret doors. They were kinda James Bond-esque with gadgets IIRC.
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Feb 26, 2024 03:17
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teen witch posted:Hatchet and Brian’s Winter made me terrified of the wilderness. I would have died immediately, I accept that I am coddled. I read Hatchet during the mandated quiet reading period where everyone had to read on their own, so there was no adult input in the heavy subject matter. Early in the book, when they takeoff in the plane, the pilot starts having heart trouble and starts farting (I vaguely recall the book saying the stench filled the whole cockpit) and then the pilot dies and they crash. Somehow I connected the dots that a heart attack is when you can’t stop farting and your heart explodes and I nearly had a panic attack because everybody farts and is therefore seconds away from a heart attack. All that to say that I would not survive in the wilderness either.
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Feb 26, 2024 03:22
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Somewhere around seventh or eighth grade is where the books we were assigned in school started getting a lot darker. The ones I remember: The Girl Who Owned a City - A sudden plague kills everyone on Earth over the age of about twelve. The children all have to survive on their own, and they do start to band together, but then those bands start murdering each other for food. Z for Zachariah - There's been a nuclear war and the entire world is dead except for a small valley where the wind pattern around the mountains happens to keep the fallout away. A teenage girl in that valley is the only living person, as far as she knows, left in the world. Then one day a guy in a radiation suit arrives, but he gets all weird and rapey. Across Five Aprils - A family's idyllic rural 19th-century life is torn to loving shreds by the Civil War.
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Feb 26, 2024 03:33
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Anyone ever read Snow Gold? wtf is it called Snow Treasure?? I guess it is. Huh! It's about kids smuggling gold bricks past Nazis in their sleds. Holy smokes I didn't realize it was published in 1942! I probably learned more about WWII from this book than anything my 4th grade teacher was teaching us. What I remember most about the WWII curriculum was all the naked corpses we had to look at. Somehow it didn't bother me that they were corpses; it bothered me that they were naked. Nobody ever told me whether or not I could look at corpses, but I'd been taught it's forbidden to look at naked bodies. But in school we had to look at concentration camp photos all day long, the mass graves, the naked corpses. Anyway, I remember it being pretty good! credburn fucked around with this message at 03:41 on Feb 26, 2024 |
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Feb 26, 2024 03:38
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A Strange Aeon posted:Anyone remember the Indian in the Cupboard? It was a series of 4 books I think about this cupboard that transports people from the past into the present via toy models. IIRC it was set in Britain? Loved those books; Boone, the sad alcoholic cowboy, was my favorite
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Feb 26, 2024 03:41
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credburn posted:Anyone ever read Snow Gold? Oh man I totally forgot about this book but I loved it. I seem to remember there was a sailing boat that was disguised to look like a little island or something? With the mast made to look like a tree. I had an old copy with this cover 
free hubcaps fucked around with this message at 03:50 on Feb 26, 2024 |
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Feb 26, 2024 03:46
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Powered Descent posted:
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Feb 26, 2024 03:47
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redshirt posted:Have you seen this movie? I loved it. It's just as you describe, though I have not read the book so don't know if the movie deviated in any big way. I only learned the movie existed just now, but I also haven't read the book in like thirty years. I'd have to track both of them down before I could compare them.
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Feb 26, 2024 03:58
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Arven posted:Doesn't he cut his foot on coral and then sterilize it with a lime or something? I haven't thought about that book in 25 years I do t recall. I haven't read it since about 1989 or so.
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Feb 26, 2024 04:08
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Don't think anyone mentioned Kenneth Oppel who wrote Silverwing, a series about bats I remember being pretty popular at the time. He did another book a few years later called Airborne which was like a zeppelin focused action series although I think I only read the first. There were a few other series I enjoyed like The Golden Compass books and the Chrestomanci series which I have never heard brought up or mentioned by anyone even though the author is apparently still writing more? Or at least the last one came out in 2006 so its not super old. Debunk This! fucked around with this message at 04:11 on Feb 26, 2024 |
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Feb 26, 2024 04:09
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I read all three of Kenneth Oppel's Airborne books and even reread them again in my senior year of high school! I was a big ol' steampunk kid. I often wonder if Starclimber inspired the Abney Park song Space Cowboy. The first book was the best one. On the subject of interesting Young Adult novels with fantastical steampunkish bents, I devoured two books by Chris Wooding: Storm Thief and The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray. They were really fantastic, with Storm Thief full of really cool and creepy ideas like a leader of a city that constantly wore an outfit that obscured whether it was an immortal individual or a group of people all operating as "The Patrician", and storms that rewrote reality if you were caught in them. Alaizabel Cray was about post-World War I London infested with demons so it's no wonder I grew up to be a huge Hellsing fan. The Golden Compass/His Dark Materials was a decent series at first but after the first book they really just turned into the author being extremely loudly atheist to the detriment of everything the first book set up.
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Feb 26, 2024 04:23
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Did anyone else read the Not Quite Human book series? It was about a robot that looked like a human 13-year-old, named Chip (ha-ha). People occasionally remember seeing the (absolutely horrid) movie adaptation that for some reason had Alan Thicke in it, but I don't think I've ever found anyone who remembers reading the original books. e: I found a pdf of the first book and good lord it's awful. Remind me not to go digging into any more childhood favorites. Powered Descent fucked around with this message at 05:17 on Feb 26, 2024 |
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Feb 26, 2024 04:42
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Powered Descent posted:The Girl Who Owned a City - A sudden plague kills everyone on Earth over the age of about twelve. The children all have to survive on their own, and they do start to band together, but then those bands start murdering each other for food. Ah yes. I remember being VERY confused by the ending of the book (basically, the female main character supposedly so effortlessly dissects the motivations and ways of the main villain that he and his whole 'evil gang' clear out of 'the city', or something like that?). Later I read that the book is basically Objectivist propaganda, which, reviewing certain plot details now, I can see. Powered Descent posted:I only learned the movie existed just now, but I also haven't read the book in like thirty years. I'd have to track both of them down before I could compare them. I went and checked Wikipedia for both. The plot between them varies a great deal. I'd say like 30 percent of the book actually makes it into the movie. Some of that is probably due to 40 years passing between the book's original publishing and the film, though. Cornwind Evil fucked around with this message at 04:52 on Feb 26, 2024 |
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